Marie-Joëlle Zahar is Professor of Political Science, Director of the Research Network on Peace Operations, and Fellow at the Centre for International Research and Studies at the Université de Montréal. She is a 2023–2026 Pierre-Elliott Trudeau Foundation Fellow, a non-resident Senior Fellow with the International Peace Institute, and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Qatar-South Africa Center for Peace and Cultural Understanding at the University of Johannesburg. A graduate of McGill University, her research interests span the politics of conflict resolution and peacebuilding.

Professor Zahar served as Senior Advisor on Process Design and Power Sharing on the Standby Team of Mediation Advisors at the UN Department of Peacebuilding and Political Affairs in 2013–2015 and 2024. In 2017, she was a senior expert in the Office of the Special Envoy of the United Nations for Syria. She has consulted and conducted trainings for the United Nations, the European Union, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the Canadian, French, and Swiss governments, among others.

Author, co-author, or editor of eighty academic books, articles, and chapters, her research has been funded by the Carnegie Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the United States Institute for Peace, the International Development Research Centre, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Fonds québécois de la recherche sur la société et la culture. Her work has notably appeared in International Studies Review, International Negotiations, Global Governance, the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, the Journal of Peacebuilding and Development, Critique internationale, and International Peacekeeping, as well as in multiple edited volumes on conflict resolution and peace implementation. She is co-author of Beyond the Arab Spring: Authoritarianism and Democratization in the Arab World (Lynne Rienner, 2012) and co-editor of Intra-State Conflict, Government and Security: Dilemmas of Deterrence and Assurance (Routledge, 2008).

Professor Zahar served on the board of directors of Women in International Security–Canada, the Canadian-Arab Institute, and the Canadian Political Science Association, as well as on the executive committee of the Canadian Consortium on Human Security. She is a board member of the International Civil Society Action Network.